This invention relates to methods and apparatus of particular use in the manufacture of dynamoelectric machine magnetic stator assemblies and more particularly to methods and apparatus involving movement of injection tooling and a core to coil loading and transfer stations; placement of winding turns on the injection tooling; transfer the tooling to a transporting mechanism and interfitting it with a wedge guide housing; movement of the tooling to wedge making and injection stations; alignment and transfer of the core into an interfitting relationship with the injection tooling; injection of the winding turns on the tooling into axially extending slots of the core; and removal of the core with windings thereon and the injection tooling from the injection station.
In the manufacture of magnetic stator assemblies used in dynamoelectric machines, windings comprising coils formed of a predetermined number of conductor turns are developed by a coil winding machine for subsequent insertion into a magnetic core. Various methods are known for carrying out this winding operation. In some prior art methods, winding coils are developed on coil forms, transferred to a transfer device, and then transferred to an insertion tool used for placing the windings on a core. Other known methods develop coils directly in a transfer tool or directly in coil injection tooling. In some cases, windings in the form of coils are disposed directly on insertion tooling mounted in a wedge guide housing. Developing coils directly in insertion tooling improves manufacturing efficiencies in that no intermediate step is required to transfer winding coils from a transfer tool to an insertion tool.
Efforts have been made to further improve manufacturing efficiencies by either both winding and inserting coils at a single operating station, or by utilizing one or more winding stations and an injection station with a rotating table. However, with either of the two above approaches, the manufacturing time is generally controlled by the operating time of the winding operation since generally the injection operation can be performed within a much shorter time than the winding operation.
Another known approach for improving the stator assembly manufacturing operation efficiencies is the utilization of several winding stations to dispose windings on insertion tools fixedly mounted in wedge guide housings. With this approach, wedge guide housings and the insertion tools attached thereto are moved from the winding stations to another station where a core is placed on the tooling. The combination housing, tooling and core are then fed to an injection station for insertion of the windings into the core. This type of an approach removes at least some of the time interdependency between the winding and injection operations.
However, with the above-discussed and other known prior approaches, attempts to more fully automate the manufacturing operation and at the same time maximize equipment utilization have required the transporting of an entire wedge guide housing between operating stations. Providing such a housing for each insertion tool adds considerable expense to the manufacturing operation; thus it would be beneficial to provide a method and apparatus wherein insertion tooling could alone be utilized during most of the manufacturing operation without having to provide an accompanying wedge guide housing for each insertion tool. Further benefits could be derived by developing a manufacturing operation wherein no transporting of wedge guide housings would be required, but instead, transport only of the insertion tooling itself on a means which could be easily moved and aligned at various stations where operations must be performed. Still further, benefits could be derived by developing a transporting means having an inserting tool support thereon which could easily be manipulated for performing winding and transfer operations.
In some prior approaches, a stator core when transported with insertion tooling has been positioned over the insertion tooling. With this type of an approach, a separate station is generally required with an additional operator and/or equipment being provided for placement of the core since the core must be positioned on the tooling after the winding operation has been completed. Thus, it would be advantageous to develop methods and apparatus wherein insertion tooling and a core to be used therewith could be selected at a single station and then transported together to winding and injection stations.
In many known prior approaches, stator assembly manufacturing operations have generally been set up to manufacture stator assemblies having cores of the same axial length. Equipment employed in such operations may often have the capability of manufacturing stator assemblies with different axial length stators; but such changeovers are often time consuming, thus, causing downtime in the manufacturing operation. Therefore, it would be advantageous to develop an arrangement whereby equipment employed in the manufacturing operation could be easily and quickly adjusted to manufacture stator assemblies having cores with different axial lengths.
Accordingly, it is a general object of the present invention to provide new and improved methods and apparatus for fabricating dynamoelectric machine stator core assemblies and a more specific object is to provide new and improved methods and apparatus which overcome the problems and deficiencies mentioned above.
A further object of the invention is to provide new and improved methods of transporting injection tooling without wedge guide housings.
A further object is to provide transporting methods and apparatus allowing injection tooling and core selection and loading at a single station.
A further object is to provide means for positioning and aligning core and injection tooling at stator assembly fabricating stations.
A still further object is to provide new and improved methods and apparatus for fabricating stator core assemblies having cores of different axial lengths.